Freedom is a Burden: The Fantasy of Martyrdom
integrity #3
Growing up Evangelical in the 90s, I was raised on stories of martyrs. From the myths of Cassie Bernall’s death at Columbine to Corrie Ten Boom’s WW2 heroism in The Hiding Place, which I wrote my college admissions essay on. What does it say about our culture that so many teens grew up fantasizing about martyrdom?
Maybe it says that life has become overly complicated and too full of gray areas. When even picking produce in the grocery store forces us to confront our own hypocrisy, it’s easy to long for the stark moral clarity of a life-threatening situation. As Charlotte Beradt wrote, “Freedom is a burden; unfreedom comes as a relief.”
Perhaps our martyrdom fantasies point to a flimsiness in our system of values. The more I learn about neoliberalism, the more I see that it is culturally pervasive. Neoliberalism emphasizes choice as the ultimate freedom while undermining our communities and institutions. Now we have 200 types of toothpaste that we’re all too exhausted to pick from but no sense of trust in our communities.
Or maybe it all boils down to wanting to be powerful and famous? My kids and I are currently reading Sunrise on the Reaping, the latest Hunger Games prequel. One of the things appealing about these dystopian novels is the idea that a lone individual can make a difference against a faceless authoritarian government, all while becoming a symbol of national resistance.
But, to quote pretend Geroge Washington:
I was just like you when I was younger
Head full of fantasies of dyin’ like a martyr?
Dying is easy, young man, living is harder.
Living IS HARDER. Fact!
If you’re exhausted, I don’t blame you. Trying to do the right thing seems more fraught by the day. Setting down the burden of freedom has never been more appealing.
And yet.
And yet the world needs you. It needs you to do the boring day-in, day-out good stuff. To be kind. To give generously. To speak up when no one else will.
We can look to our martyrs and heroes for inspiration AND we can remember that most of the stuff they did wasn’t ever written down in books. I bet George Washington sat in a lot of dumb meetings. I bet Corrie Ten Boom spent a fair amount of time cleaning bathrooms. It is not glorious work, but it is good work, nonetheless.
Your story is not a dystopian YA novel, a Christian bookstore biography, or a Revolutionary War musical. It’s the accumulation of 1000 tiny habits of goodness building on each other, day by day. That’s what virtue ethics says, anyway, that goodness is a habit. May we build up the muscles of goodness and keep striving to use our freedom responsibly.
Today I will choose to take a breath before responding. I will choose to ask questions. Today I will choose uncomfortable truths.
BONUS MATERIALS:
I like this video on virtue ethics, the whole series is pretty good, too, if you want to nerd out on philosophy
The official anthem of 2025, IMO
"Growing up Evangelical in the 90s, I was raised on stories of martyrs. From the myths of Cassie Bernall’s death at Columbine to Corrie Ten Boom’s WW2 heroism in The Hiding Place, which I wrote my college admissions essay on. What does it say about our culture that so many teens grew up fantasizing about martyrdom?" A question that needs to be talked about more.
want so much to be a Martyr but brain cells are shot so avoider here. Thank you for calling out Neoliberalism individualism and all this superfluous bs choice w/no real choices where anything important really counts (like choosing not to support psychopathic genocide in Gaza w/my taxes or even a public option in the ACA for medical coverage let alone medicare for all, or big pharma drug price negotiations across the board etc ..). The neolib/neocon/neofasc tech feudalism gridlock we are stuck in has us all by the nads. our burden of freedom is quickly evaporating and/or confusingly convoluted and nebulous even though we do have at least for the moment way more freedoms than so many in the world and in our own society depending on economic privileges/those doomed to prison economy/those deported detained w/out due process or adequate proof of why for political speech/so called gang involvement etc.